Alcatel-Lucent opens first-of-its-kind network center in Tokyo

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has today opened an innovative facility in Tokyo designed to give service providers and enterprise customers hands-on experience in the co-creation of new ultra-broadband and cloud-based services and applications. 

The Alcatel-Lucent Customer Network Center (CNC) is a first-of-its-kind in Japan – one of the world’s most advanced telecommunications markets – and has been created to make networking trends, most notably the trend towards cloud-based networking, tangible for customers. In the CNC, Alcatel-Lucent customers can participate in interactive demonstrations and co-creation opportunities that lead to the creation of new business models.

Among the platforms in the center are Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBandTM NFV technology and Nuage Networks, Alcatel-Lucent’s ‘in-house start-up’ venture focused on SDN solutions that applies advanced levels of programmability and automation to the cloud-optimized network.

Commenting on the opening, Nicolas Bouverot, President, Alcatel-Lucent Japan said: “The mission of the Japan Customer Network Center is to support in an extremely collaborative manner and develop concrete customer projects involving solutions that can be rolled out using the latest innovations and cloud networks.  Customers will be able to ask all the questions necessary to gain understanding at each of the four stages of decision making from early customer engagement, to requirement specification, through Proof of Concept, and finally, preparation for production release. The CNC brings ultra-broadband communications, the cloud, and the customer together.”

Other Key Facts:

• The Customer Network Center in Tokyo will extend Alcatel-Lucent’s Central NFV Competency Center in Naperville, near Chicago in the United States, providing remote access via the cloud in Tokyo. This will allow for demos and interoperability testing of virtualized solutions over the CloudBand NFV platform to support Alcatel-Lucent’s Japan NFV/Network Transformation initiative which is already under way in Japan.

• With 51 million LTE subscribers, Japan represents the world’s second largest market for LTE growth after the United States (source: Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, June 2014).
• Japan has been a pioneer in ultra-broadband access, mobile and cloud technologies and services, and has a history of fostering ecosystems that allows the highly innovative collaboration.

ABOUT ALCATEL-LUCENT (EURONEXT PARIS AND NYSE: ALU)

We are at the forefront of global communications, providing products and innovations in IP and cloud networking, as well as ultra-broadband fixed and wireless access to service providers and their customers, and to enterprises and institutions throughout the world. Underpinning us in driving the industrial transformation from voice telephony to high-speed digital delivery of data, video and information is Bell Labs, an integral part of the Group and one of the world’s foremost technology research institutes, responsible for countless breakthroughs that have shaped the networking and communications industry. Our innovations have resulted in our Group being recognized by Thomson Reuters as a Top 100 Global Innovator, as well as being named by MIT Technology Review as amongst 2012’s Top 50 “World’s Most Innovative Companies”. We have also been recognized for innovation in sustainability, being named Industry Group Leader in the Technology Hardware & Equipment sector in the 2014 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices review, for making global communications more sustainable, affordable and accessible, all in pursuit of the Group’s mission to realize the potential of a connected world.

With revenues of Euro 14.4 billion in 2013, Alcatel-Lucent is listed on the Paris and New York stock exchanges (Euronext and NYSE: ALU). The company is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow the Company on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.